Month: June 2016

As the league has now gone on a summer break for the UEFA Euro 2016, let’s take another look a the Allsvenskan season so far.

Since last time, Malmö have overtaken Norrköping at the top, and the early surprise side Sundsvall have dropped to 6th. AIK, Kalmar and Häcken have climbed in the table, while Djurgården, Hammarby and Helsingborg have done the opposite. Gefle and Falkenberg still struggle at the bottom.

Shots-wise the league seems to have settled, as only Elfsborg and Göteborg have changed quadrants since the last update. Also, Malmö’s gap to the other clubs has decreased.

Looking at effectiveness in attack, we can see partially why some sides have climbed or dropped in the league table. Malmö and Häcken have enjoyed some efficient scoring, moving them from ‘wasteful’ into the ‘constant threat’ quadrant, while Djurgården have done the opposite.

Defensively, we see how AIK have been more effective at the back together with Sundsvall and Jönköpings Södra, while Djurgården’s performance has worsened.

Looking at xG, we see how AIK have overtaken Malmö as the best attacking side, but have at the same time moved into the ‘worse defence’ half. Hammarby’s attacking numbers have dropped while Falkenberg have performed better. Östersund and Örebro still sit at opposite ends, with the former involved in some low xG games and the latter producing some xG-fests with both defensive and attacking xG at about 1.8 per game.

Malmö are still at the top of the xGD table, but have dropped a bit from their >1.0 from last time. Kalmar have climbed to third while Djurgården and AIK have dropped. The bottom three remain the same as last time.

Looking at Expected Points for a ‘fair’ table based on the shots taken and conceded so far, we see how Malmö are still at the top while Gefle are stuck at the bottom. Göteborg have overtaken AIK in the top three, while Kalmar have climbed by about 8 points out of 12 possible.

A note on Expected Points Performance: Winning teams will always outperform their Expected Points, as picking up all 3 points will usually be above expectation as no team dominate a game so much as to warrant a 100% win probability. The same goes for teams who consistently lose, as 0 points will usually be below expectation.

Looking at time spent in Game States, we see how Gefle have spent just about 10% of the season in the lead so far. Helsingborg and Häcken have spent little time drawing while Sundsvall still have spent very little time trailing.

Just with like the actual league table, there some big differences in the prediction compared to the last update, showing how difficult it can be to predict the league this early into the season. Mid-table has really opened up since last time, but the top 2 and bottom 3 remains the same.

Long-term trends and managerial changes

Usually, I would’ve ended the post here but as two managers have been sacked since the last update, I thought it would be interesting to see how AIK and Gefle have performed under Andreas Alm and Roger Sandberg respectively. I won’t comment on these plots more than that Alm likely had to leave because of politics and disputes at the club, while Sandberg was sacked due to Gefle’s poor results.